Thursday, March 24, 2005
Wellington and Napier
On Tuesday we visited a few more wineries in Blenheim, having long conversations with the people giving the tastes in order to pace the day so we didn't get too confused or drunk. We had dinner at a place called Herzog, where an Austrian winemaker closed his winery and three-Michelin-Star-for-Austria restaurant and moved the whole thing to New Zealand about 5 years ago. The food was good, but the wine was pretty Swiss -- the grapes and the character of the wine were different from the other Marlborough wine we'd had and generally not as satisfying.
Wednesday we crossed the Cook Strait to the North Island, returning our little white Toyota Echo in Picton and picking up a little white Toyota Echo in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. We'd arranged to stay with a couple we'd met on the Galapagos cruise last fall, and we drove to their house. Their house is a two-year-old flat on the beach within walking distance of downtown. I think it's the nicest place we've ever stayed anywhere. Adrien Brody is staying in another flat in the same building while filming King Kong (the owners of it aren't quite ready to move in). We felt right at home in Wellington -- Robin drove us to the transmitter tower with a great view of the city (Twin Peaks), past the abandoned military base with art galleries (Fort Mason), and past lots of houses sitting in rows right next to each other with no gaps on steep hills occasionally punctuated by urban stairways. She took us past Peter Jackson's house, and at one point we saw a major piece of scenery driving by on a trailer. We picked up her husband Michael at the airport, who took us on a two-hour walking tour of the central city, which has a large new museum dedicated to the Maori heritage of New Zealand, a circular Parliament building referred to as The Beehive, and vibrant shopping and drinking districts. After that we had our only home-cooked meal on this trip, and just hung out with them and drank lots of wine and talked about New Zealand and the US and travel and politics. It was a completely enjoyable visit.
Now we're in Napier, a city which was leveled in an 7.9 earthquake in 1931. Since Art Deco was the style of the day, the entire downtown was rebuilt within three years with that aesthetic, and has consciously preserved it ever since. Virtually all of the buildings have the zigzags and sunbursts and "eyebrows" and ziggurats and general style of that movement.
Wednesday we crossed the Cook Strait to the North Island, returning our little white Toyota Echo in Picton and picking up a little white Toyota Echo in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. We'd arranged to stay with a couple we'd met on the Galapagos cruise last fall, and we drove to their house. Their house is a two-year-old flat on the beach within walking distance of downtown. I think it's the nicest place we've ever stayed anywhere. Adrien Brody is staying in another flat in the same building while filming King Kong (the owners of it aren't quite ready to move in). We felt right at home in Wellington -- Robin drove us to the transmitter tower with a great view of the city (Twin Peaks), past the abandoned military base with art galleries (Fort Mason), and past lots of houses sitting in rows right next to each other with no gaps on steep hills occasionally punctuated by urban stairways. She took us past Peter Jackson's house, and at one point we saw a major piece of scenery driving by on a trailer. We picked up her husband Michael at the airport, who took us on a two-hour walking tour of the central city, which has a large new museum dedicated to the Maori heritage of New Zealand, a circular Parliament building referred to as The Beehive, and vibrant shopping and drinking districts. After that we had our only home-cooked meal on this trip, and just hung out with them and drank lots of wine and talked about New Zealand and the US and travel and politics. It was a completely enjoyable visit.
Now we're in Napier, a city which was leveled in an 7.9 earthquake in 1931. Since Art Deco was the style of the day, the entire downtown was rebuilt within three years with that aesthetic, and has consciously preserved it ever since. Virtually all of the buildings have the zigzags and sunbursts and "eyebrows" and ziggurats and general style of that movement.
